Federal law enforcement begins encroaching into the mission of state police forces

Federal law enforcement begins encroaching into the mission of state police forces. Federal agencies then begin to expand their scope of interests and encroach upon each others’ missions and scope of interests. All of this results in the initial agencies lacking the necessary funding to do what they were created to do, or otherwise having to compete with various agencies for a limited pool of funding. This is dangerous because the agencies then begin to determine what to investigate based on politics and what will please the people who decide where money goes. This is also dangerous because it dumbs down state law enforcement agencies who have often become dependent on the federal agencies funding and backing them, both in terms of dollars and in investigative expertise and internal infrastructure: “When the FBI has an amazing ballistics lab, why should an individual state government have one?” – ad nauseam… (As I recall, after years of claiming that they could identify lots of ammo by analysis of the isotopes in the lead, the FBI finally conceded that they could not do so reliably.)